Rate and Review: "The Falcon and the D'ohman" (NABF16)

[Zombies Rise from the Sea]

September 25, 2011: The Falcon and the D'ohman (NABF16) (Season Premiere)
Homer befriends a new security guard at the plant; Marge daydreams about being a contestant on "Top Chef.''



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[McClure]

Time for my poorly organized and not very detailed review!

Off-topic: The new old spice commercial guy is nowhere as good as the original one.

On-topic: I'm surprised, it was actually an enjoyable episode. Nothing spectacular, but the best new episode I've seen in a while (though to be fair, I still have yet to see most of the last season).

The visual gags in particular were quite good, such as the opening, Wayne's training session and various couples lying awake in bed. The Korean animated thing was funny too but it may have dragged on too long. Also fantastic was the Kiev, Ukraine typo joke.

Kiefer Sutherland also did quite a good job.

It was a fun episode, mostly void of the problems that have plagued recent seasons. The characters were tolerable, the one-liners were mostly clever and it was well-written. The plot was original, and the third act in particular was great (notably the kidnapping video).

The worst part of the episode, by far, was the thing with the children singing about Kim Jong Il. Actually, the ending also ruined the whole Nedna joke. I was going to say that they handled it very well with the hints, and then showing them in bed... Then they ruined it by having them do an announcement at the end and throwing in a bad Skinner joke. It's almost as if someone said "Hmm.... Perhaps showing them in bed together with Edna winking isn't obvious enough... No, to be safe, we'd better cater to the 0.01% of the audience and explain it."

Line of the night: "I'd take a moment to enjoy those store names if I didn't have a job to do."

For those curious, the director was Matthew Nastuk, and the writer was some new guy or freelancer.

[The Governor]

The Good:

--The bad CGI replay of the incident at Moe's (most LOL moment in a LONG time!)
--That Angry Birds commercial...which wasn't part of the episode.
--Auto Tune Victim

The Bad:
--Everything else.
--Everything else where the joke ran on and on and on and...

DYK: This episode was a based a tiny bit on the movie "A History of Violence" when Wayne's video was shown on YouTube.

Random Musings:
--While I've pretty neutral to the "HD" animation, the scene where Homer tries to find a parking spot looked pretty amateur, like someone was moving layers around Flash.

Grade: 2.25/5. Barely interesting at all, minus a few surprising good parts.

[zartok-35]

The song at the beginning was a nice touch. The Tiwanese computer animation scene was bizzare and quite funny.

3/5, derrated to 2/5 on a moderate Nastuk deductable.

[Jesse Pinkman]

as far as s23 premieres go...

this was ok. what i enjoyed:

-the various couples in bed, and barney on the street

-the animation, like when the guy went through the training in the flashback

-Ned's orange juice scene. For some reason things like that make me laugh.

-the hostage video

-Kiether Sutherland's character as a whole was pretty good.

well, it wasn't a terrible premiere, but it wasn't too great either. kind of a little above average, if anything. 3/5 or so seems right

[McClure]

3/5, derrated to 2/5 on a moderate Nastuk deductable.

Huh? Does this mean you didn't like the animation in this episode?

[Oh, that's raspberry!]

Well it was absolutely fantastic compared to Homer the Whopper or Elementary School Musical, but on the whole I'd probably go with just slightly above average. Wayne as a character was pretty good but I think they went to the flashback well one too many times with him. I know we'll never see him again but it'd be nice if he appeared working in the DMV in a later episode or two. I also liked his Clint-esque character design.

Marge's Top Chef scene was pointless now that I think of it and the third act was easily the best. I kept thinking wow it sure is taking Homer a long time to get kidnapped but I ultimately liked where they went with it at the hockey stadium. Nedna was handled well I thought and I can't help but wonder how much we'll see Edna next door over the next several episodes which were presumably written before the results.

No opening theme again for the second time in a row also surprised me a bit. Gags I really enjoyed included the Ned orange juice mislead, everyone being kept awake by Wayne and a nice callback to the Sleep Eazy Motel, that entire Taiwanese video, Homer's kidnapping, message video, and the way he was being kept. I also liked Wayne's line about reading the store names if he weren't so busy. For a first time viewing I'll say 3.5/5, and I'll be generous and round up to a 4 on the poll.

[lionelhutz123]

That was the best premiere in a while. I went into this with absolutely no enthusiasm or care, because what I really care about is the new Breaking Bad tonight, but the first act went by and I enjoyed it. Homer wasn't that over the top like the promo suggested. The song in the beginning was a fun way to kick off the season. The fist bump thing was kind of iffy to me because I like it when Homer is oblivious and traditional when it comes to his standards as a middle-aged father, and him doing the fist bump just feeds to that annoying part of his character today that is established as the hip cartoon dad. That was nothing though compared to how much worse things can get with his character. I laughed as if I was watching a decent comedy towards the end of the first act:

-Kiefer's character reluctantly getting in the car with Homer followed by him making it clear he doesn't want to be buddies. "...don't be calling me in the morning to turn to channel 6..." The line was executed very well and made me chuckle.

- Moe handing the gun over to Snake. This show does "screw the audience" jokes all the time, and for some reason, this one fooled me.

- Lenny's explanation of how we all know what we're doing

- Moe: "That's the farthest one of our eggs has ever gone down someone's throat"

The second act followed and was able to pick up the pace. The status-quo fakeout with Ned and his orange juice was funny, as well as the japanese news animation which I don't think went too long at all. The only thing that I didn't care for was the wacky training flashback. I was hoping Kiefer's character was just out of his mind from something that occurred in a more realistic manner but I guess not all cylinders can fire when it comes to a satisfying show. I think it would have made him alot more interesting as a character if that was so, but nonetheless, it's not a big deal. I'm glad the Marge thing was just a joke rather than a subplot. In fact alot of screen time was put into the main plot which was a good choice on the writers part. Bart and Lisa's scenes were kept short and I liked Bart confessing that he let Milhouse lay in Lisa's bed.

The rest of the episode kind of returned to the "character being in danger" leading to everything going back to normal, but it still held my attention. Nothing to write home about though. Again, it was alot less obnoxious than what the previews made it out to be. The ending with the kids singing about KJI was random and unnecessary, but the episode's overall story was pretty solid. Nothing made me really cringe, so I'm pretty content. The Nedna bump at the end was cute. 3/5

[biffwestwood]

5/5

Excellent episode. Kiefer Sutherland gave us a top notch performance for an appealing character. There were many great action sequences that kept my interest in the story. The flashback scenes and Homer's envisioned robotic future stand out. The 3d sequence was a nice touch. My favorite part was Bart getting violent revenge against the bullies.

We now know that Ned and Edna have decided to stick together which is what I wanted to happen. I hope that it gets put to good use.

[Friz]

There appears to be two Zombie Simpson catergories. Terrible, and Not Utterly Terrible. "Terrible" episodes are, well, terrible. "Not Utterly Terrible" episodes can be watchable, but they have no rewatch value at all.

This episode was Not Utterly Terrible.

[Snaked]

What I did instead of watching this episode: Eat Sausage on a bun with The Amazing Race on instead.

[Xt'Tapalatakettle]

This was the best premiere in a long, long time (since at least season 16 or earlier). Yeah, there were a lot of flashbacks, but the episode committed to those flashbacks as a storytelling (and joke-telling) element of the episode. Wayne was a very compelling character overall and I'm glad they made the episode more about him and less about Homer.

I really enjoyed the flash-forward Terminator joke. Overall, 4/5.

P.S.- The Nedna stuff was a bit much. I didn't mind the fakeout, but Edna winking at the screen (as well as their comments at the end) drew a bit too much attention to it.

[irvine_11]

Wow, what a let-down episode.

The last few episodes of season 22 were decent enough, so I was half-expecting this episode to be around that same quality. Boy, was I wrong. In fact, this episode was so bad, I actually found tonight's Cleveland Show more enjoyable than this one.

For starters, most of the plot felt like a rehash of Homer's Enemy. I'd honestly would have rather had Grimey's bastard son be the star of this episode rather than Wayne. He might have at least made this episode more bearable to watch. Wayne was probably the most boring and underdeveloped character of the whole series. I've never watched an episode of 24 all the way through, so that might be the reason why I feel that way. Nevertheless, The plot its self was also underdeveloped and poorly executed. I just couldn't find myself getting sucked into the story at all. Perhaps that is to be expected with a lot of modern Simpsons episodes, but this was just ridiculous. I've seen better action movie parodies on American Dad.

The only positive thing is that a few isolated gags did work, which is what saved this episode from getting an F. I'm torn on whether to give this a D or D-, but it'll get a plain D for now.

[irvine_11]

The Good:

--The bad CGI replay of the incident at Moe's (most LOL moment in a LONG time!)
--That Angry Birds commercial...which wasn't part of the episode.
--Auto Tune Victim

The Bad:
--Everything else.
--Everything else where the joke ran on and on and on and...

DYK: This episode was a based a tiny bit on the movie "A History of Violence" when Wayne's video was shown on YouTube.

Random Musings:
--While I've pretty neutral to the "HD" animation, the scene where Homer tries to find a parking spot looked pretty amateur, like someone was moving layers around Flash.

Grade: 2.25/5. Barely interesting at all, minus a few surprising good parts.

I dunno, Jake, that AutoTune joke felt to me like the writers were saying "Hahaha, look. We're aware that people on YouTube use AutoTune! We can use AutoTune, too!"

[zartok-35]

Huh? Does this mean you didn't like the animation in this episode?

Yes. The first act was particulalrly bad.